Soaring Temperatures Can Heat Up the Negativity

I try to see the positive side of things, regardless of how bad they may seem. But after being shut up in my apartment in an attempt at keeping cool during the recent heat wave, being positive wasn’t easy.

On about the fourth day, all the negative things I’ve overlooked in the past really began to irritate me.

First it was my electric bill. I wondered how high much higher it was going to be this month as my air conditioner whirred away morning, noon and night. That brought back memories of the days when Sacramento was known for its hot summer days and cool summer nights. I wondered when that changed.

It had to be after my kids were grown, because the heat never stopped me from spending hours at Little League games or from piling neighborhood kids in the car to head out for some adventure, and nothing would have kept me holed up in the house for a whole day, let alone five or six days. Of course it couldn’t be my age today that holds me back — after all, that was only 35-plus years ago.

Listening to the radio one morning, I cringed when I heard a prominent radio personality introduce a Realtor as a “re-la-tor.” I even talked back to the radio: “It’s real-tor! Look at the way it’s spelled, the ‘a’ comes before the ‘l’ not after it!”

I can’t understand why so many people who should know better mispronounce words that are so much a part of our everyday vernacular. Like the word nuclear — it should be pronounced nu-cle-ar not nu-cue-lar. Someone told me not long ago that both those pronunciations have been termed acceptable! Who made that determination? I guess teaching phonics is passé.

It isn’t only language that seems to be suffering. Not wanting to hurt anyone’s psyche, we’ve become a society that no longer insists people learn and abide by long-standing and accepted rules of speech or conduct. Now, we simply change the rules to fit the popular trend of the day. I read recently that the failure rate in our schools varies from 60 percent in elementary grades to 80 percent in middle and high schools. Is it any wonder why? Discipline no longer applies.

Every day, we hear of terrible automobile accidents caused by high speeds, even while safety promotions keep reminding us that speed kills and we need to slow down. At the same time, all the automobile car commercials on TV tout the fact that “their” automobile can get up to 100-plus miles an hour in so many seconds as they race off into the distance down country lanes or curvy mountain roads yet are able to screech to a halt on a dime. It would seem that the safety campaigners should meet with the automobile promoters and get everyone on the same road.

Reading the front page of my morning newspaper, I saw an item that reported an increase in the number of people suffering from depression. Then as I continued to turn the pages I saw headlines screaming at me about all the troubles in the world — the war in Iraq, the deplorable state of the state, the recall, a man who killed his entire family … on and on it went. By the time I reached the back page of the section, I was depressed.

Then, I turned on the TV. Big mistake. All I got was more of the same gloom and doom. This would have turned Norman Vincent Peale into a pessimist.

Yet even on the most negative of news days, there is always something to be positive about, something to brighten the day. I picked up a magazine and read that Britney Spears had finally lost her virginity. Wow, isn’t that great! I can’t tell you all the sleepless nights I had worrying and wondering when that would happen!

Suddenly, I was no longer depressed.